Terrorism after bin Laden

Two propositions: first, whatever its short-term consequences, the killing of Osama bin Laden will neither significantly hasten nor significantly delay the decline of al-Qa’eda. That is happening anyway. Secondly, however slowly or rapidly AQ declines, it will not significantly affect the global level of terrorism. We’re stuck with it anyway. But it’s manageable.

Two propositions: first, whatever its short-term consequences, the killing of Osama bin Laden will neither significantly hasten nor significantly delay the decline of al-Qa’eda. That is happening anyway. Secondly, however slowly or rapidly AQ declines, it will not significantly affect the global level of terrorism. We’re stuck with it anyway. But it’s manageable.

AQ began as a database recording the names of foreign fighters killed in 1980s Afghanistan. The term may have originated with Abdullah Assam’s 1987 call for al-Qa’eda al-sulbah (a vanguard of the strong) but it became widespread only when the FBI gave it legal status while investigating the 1998 US embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania. The unintended consequence of this was to endow a disparate jihadi movement with the apparent solidity and legal status of those it chose as its enemies — the nation states of Middle Eastern and western governments. We treated it as the monolith it never was, which made us less adroit in combating it.

It peaked, of course, with 9/11, since when it has lost through death or capture more than 75 per cent of its original leadership and probably around 3,500 fighters. Despite focusing its war against the West, and America in particular, it has achieved little in terms of action, with London’s 2005 bombings arguably the only successful attack it has organised since 9/11. The number of Americans killed by terrorism since 9/11 roughly equals the number who drowned in their baths.